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Wary police point to a spate of gun-snatchings: 20 guns stolen in Brentwood during two break-ins of retired police, an assault rifle swiped from the trunk of an unmarked San Francisco police car, and the burglars who poisoned the K-9 dogs at the home of a Bay Area cop before making off with two handguns and a couple of long guns, according to the newspaper.

No statistics on this phenomenon are available, the newspaper noted, but nonetheless, "there does seem to be a rise, and there definitely is concern," Ron Cottingham, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, said in a Chronicle interview. "This is something that's occurred in the past sporadically, but (the recent burglaries) seem to be almost targeting cops' houses."

Brentwood and Antioch, sites of some of the thefts, are known as "cop towns," and perhaps paradoxically, burglaries have jumped 30 percent in Antioch, the newspaper reported.

Theft is one of the main ways guns land in the hands of criminals, the newspaper reported, with 1.4 million guns taken in robberies from 2005 to 2010 nationwide.

Some experts think homeowners who advertise somehow that they own a gun may be targeted themselves for a robbery.

Thieves are attracted to that kind of loot, and are not afraid to carry away a weapon even if it's locked away: in several of the Bay Area robberies, thieves carried away the safes in which the guns were locked, according to reports.